The Last of the Buffalo
1888 · Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
Bierstadt painted this vast hunt as the herds were nearing extinction, with skulls and bones already lying across the foreground.
★ 5.4
The Art canon
Sourced and hung.
Every work chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 704 works or filter by movement, subject, place, and artist.
Browse all 704 works or filter by movement, subject, place, and artist.
Twilight in the Wildnerness
1860 · Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland
Not a single figure anywhere in it. Church painted this burning sky in 1860, and people have read the Civil War into it since.
★ 6.8
Kindred Spirits
1838 · Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
Thomas Cole and the poet Bryant stand on a ledge in the Catskills. Durand painted it as a memorial after Cole died young.
★ 6.8
The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak
1863 · Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
Bierstadt went west with a survey expedition and came home with peaks lit like an opera set, which is what the country wanted.
★ 6.8
The Oxbow
1836 · Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
Wilderness under storm on the left, farmland in sunshine on the right, and Cole himself down in the middle, tiny, looking up from his easel.
★ 7.2